The Origins of Life

One reason why I know there is a God active in our world.

Three facts, agreed upon by skeptics and believers alike, cry out for explanation: the existence of our universe; the existence of life having arisen from seemingly non-living, inert matter built of protons, neutrons and electrons; and the emergence of consciousness, sentience, self-awareness in that life which has arisen from the seemingly non-living, inert matter.

So unlikely are those last two facts that Richard Dawkins, the most quoted and outspoken of skeptics, attributes the origins of life and consciousness to "luck" (The God Delusion; Bantam Press 2006; London; p. 141). His conclusion for the source of that luck: the laws of nature are fine tuned for favoring life (ibid; p145, 146). In truth, the laws of nature are ideal for supporting life though this tells us nothing regarding the parameters required for the start of life.

Torah obviously attributes the explanation for all three facts, as well as for the fine tuning of the laws of nature, to the will and wisdom of our Divine Creator. Science opts for the luck of the draw. It is well to recall that the late Francis Crick who shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Wilkins for their discovery of the structure of DNA, attributed the possible origin of life on earth to the deliberate seeding of life on earth, so unlikely and so rapidly was the appearance of life on earth. He termed the process directed panspermia. Crick shortly before his death described his life philosophy as an agnostic with a prejudice toward atheism. For Crick, as with Dawkins, there seems to be no logical solution to the puzzle of life's origin.

Let's investigate what it takes to make life in our magnificent universe.

Our cosmic genesis in a nut shell:

How could the energy of the big bang become a sentient mind? A study of the origins of sentient life does not start with a search for the clues on planet earth. That is far too far along in the saga. A proper study begins, exactly as does the Bible, with the very beginning, with the big bang creation of the universe.

The most fundamental issue in the God/no God debate is existence of a universe. We would do well to ponder the puzzle of why there is existence. Unfortunately, by the time we are old enough to even contemplate the wonder of existence, we've been around so long that we just take the fact of existence for granted. But think about it. Why is there anything? Why is there a universe within which life may or may not have evolved, developed, rather than nothing? It has been said quite accurately that the difference between nothing (as before the big bang creation) and something (the existence of our universe) is infinite.

"Even if we scientists eventually attain a ‘theory of everything,' we will still be left with the question of ‘why?'"

In a refreshing expression of intellectual honesty, Nobel laureate and theoretical physicist, (and marvelous human as well) Steven Weinberg, an avid atheist who unabashedly states that "the moral influence of religion has been awful" and further that any "signs of a benevolent designer are pretty well hidden," also tells us that even if we scientists eventually attain a ‘theory of everything,' "we will still be left with the question of ‘why?' ... So there seems to be an irreducible mystery that science will not eliminate" [1].

Once past the conundrum, or more candidly stated, once we decide to ignore that deepest of puzzles, we can concentrate on the big bang creation. Just what did the big bang produce?

Science posits that the big bang was the beginning of time and space. But what about matter? That is considerably more enlightening, literally. The big bang did not produce matter as we know it, not any of the 92 elements such as carbon and oxygen, and not the protons, neutrons or electrons that would eventually combine to make the atoms of those elements. By a fraction of a microsecond following the creation, the primary material product of the big bang was concentrated as exquisitely intense energy. There are many types of energy, but the form most manifest microseconds after the creation was electro-magnetic radiation -- in simplistic terms, something akin to super powerful light beams. Then, within the first few moments following the creation, as the universe raced outward, stretching space, a transition took place, a transition the basis for which was discovered by Albert Einstein and quantified in that most famous of equations, E = mc2, of energy condensing into the form of matter. A minute fraction of those light beams of energy metamorphosed and became the lightest of elements, primarily the gases of hydrogen and helium. Over eons of time, mutual gravitational forces pulled those primordial gases into galaxies of stars. The immense pressures within the stellar cores crushed the nuclei of hydrogen together, fusing them to form heavier elements and in doing so, releasing the vast amounts of energy we see as starlight. These forces of fusion coupled with those of stellar explosions, supernovae, yielded the 92 elements that eventually on planet earth became alive and sentient. All this built of the light-like energy of the creation. Now that is a cause for wonder.

Light beams became alive, and not only became alive, but acquired the ability to wonder, became self-aware. The wonder is not whether this genesis took six days or 14 billion years or even eternity. The wonder is that it happened. Of that fact there is no debate in science. According to our best understanding of the universe and equally according to the most ancient commentaries on The Book of Genesis, there was only one physical creation. Science refers to it as the big bang. The Bible calls it the creation. Every physical object in this vast universe, including our human bodies, is built of the light of creation.

To elucidate the awesome and humbling implications of this incredible transition of light into life, consider the following better understood transition. In one hand I hold a clear glass jar containing the gas oxygen. In my other hand I hold a jar of hydrogen gas. I study the chemistry of these two gases and discover that under the correct conditions, they can combine to make water, H2O. Water neither looks nor acts like oxygen and hydrogen, but it is. When we drink water we are drinking hydrogen and oxygen in a very special combination. In parallel, we humans and all the matter we see about us may not look like the condensed energy of the big bang creation, but we are.

We humans and all the matter we see about us may not look like the condensed energy of the big bang creation, but we are.

Einstein's famous equation does not mean that the energy disappears and matter takes its place. No, not at all. What that equation states is that energy can change form and take on the characteristics of matter, just as the hydrogen and oxygen remain hydrogen and oxygen even as they change form when they combine to form water. We are made of the light creation, and no scientist will argue against this. It's not new age talk, or guru wishing. It's established scientific reality. We, our bodies, were part of the creation.

The discoveries in the 1970's by Elso Barghoorn of Harvard University demonstrated that life began as early as can be geologically recorded. The oldest rocks that can bear fossils already have fossils of microbes, some caught in the act of mitosis, cell division. By the time that the earliest layers of sedimentary rock appeared on earth, nature had already invented life with its ability to survive and reproduce, to store and decipher information. DNA, with its potential to condense a vast molecular library of information within microns of space, was in place and operating. This extraordinary feat of invention and fabrication is recoded in those ancient sediments.

On the primordial, pre-biotic Earth, there were likely vast numbers of molecules forming and disintegrating. One of them succeeded in climbing the ladder of complexity and became alive. And most wondrous of all, tucked within that fecund molecule that eventually led to the first life, following a myriad of unimagined mutations, was the ability to reproduce. Not only to reproduce, but to do so with some variations in structure. Identical reproduction yields stasis, as a copying machine. What was needed and that which nature produced was a molecule that could reproduce and change, somehow borrowing resources from its immediate environment, until it became a cell. But reproduction is purpose driven, the continuation of the line. That pre-biotic molecule, whether by design or by dumb luck, had purpose within from its inception.

Life appeared with purpose already as part of its birthright.

Logically, the first compound that would eventually lead to the earliest life must have had the ability to reproduce. If it did not, then as its molecular machinery degraded, it would disintegrate. Any beneficial mutations that might have accumulated during its span of existence would have been lost and the trek toward cellular life would then have had to begin again, de novo. Life appeared with purpose already as part of its birthright. This simple undisputed fact is extraordinary.

Even the so-called simpler forms of life, such as microbes, are overwhelmingly complex. The mechanisms of cellular function when studied in detail are not only mind-boggling. They are essentially identical in all forms of life, be it animal, plant, bacterial or fungal. The likelihood that this complexity could have been chanced upon even once is vanishingly small. Having it arise independently twice by chance is essentially an impossibility. All life must have had a single common origin. But what was that origin?

Could that miraculous flow from inanimate matter to the incredible intricacy of life have been the result of purely random events? Is the incredible not necessarily the impossible?

The pitfall in answering the question lies in the misplaced assumption that chance random events can produce the ordered complexity of life.

It is time to lay to rest the misguided, but popularly believed un-truth that in our world, gradual, step by step random mutations could have climbed the mountain of improbability and produced the magnificent abundance of the Earth's biosphere. To accomplish this goal requires a modicum of elementary arithmetic, some basic high school level biology and a touch of astronomy. But it is worth the effort to bury once and for all the ill-conceived, but often unquestioned assumption that random mutations produced life or anything even tenuously related to life.

Stephen Hawking in his A Brief History Of Time, the most widely sold science book ever written, taught the world about the potential power of random events to produce meaningful complex order, such as is found in a work of literature. "It is a bit like the well known hordes of monkeys hammering away on typewriters. Most of what they write will be garbage but very occasionally by pure chance they will type out one of Shakespeare's sonnets." It is a compelling adage but totally off base at least within our universe, and it is life in our universe about which we are concerned. I am surprised the Prof Hawking would have let this slip occur.

I don't know many sonnets. In fact when I thought about this, I only knew the opening line of one, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day." There are a bit fewer than 500 letters in that sonnet [All Shakespeare's sonnets are about the same length; all by definition 14 lines long.] Can we get a sonnet by chance? If Hawking says so, it must be true.

But is it?

Let's consider 500 grab bags each holding the 26 letters of the English language. I reach into the first bag blindfolded and pull out a letter. The likelihood that it will be ‘s' for the first letter of the sonnet is one chance in 26. The likelihood that in the initial two draws from the first two bags I will get an ‘s' and then an ‘h' is one chance in 26 times 26. And so on for the 500 letters. Neglecting spaces between the words, the chance of getting entire sonnet by chance is 26 multiplied by itself 500 times. That seems as if it may be a fairly big number. And it is. Surprisingly so. That number comes out to be a one with 700 zeroes after it. In conventional math terms, it is 10700 or 10 to the exponent power of 700.

Chance does not produce intelligible text and certainly not a sonnet, not in our universe.

To give a sense of scale for reference, the known universe, including all forms of matter and energy, weighs in the order of 1056grams; the number of basic particles in the known universe is 1080; the age of the universe from our perspective of time, 1018 seconds. Convert all the universe into micro-computers each weighing a billionth of a gram and run each of those computers billions of times a second non-stop from the beginning of time and we still will need greater than 10500 universes, or that much more time for even a remote probability of getting a sonnet; any meaningful sonnet. Chance does not produce intelligible text and certainly not a sonnet, not in our universe.

So why do persons, without questioning, accept that chance can do it all? The reason is distressingly simple. If you are fed from your earliest learning the saga that unguided random reactions produced life, then arguing from the major to the minor, certainly you'll believe the un-truth that sonnets will come popping out of your random letter generator.

A proverb that is actually true, and is worthy of repeating, states: the song a sparrow learns in its youth is its song for life. And we humans, at our deepest emotional level, are not so very different. That which you learn in your youth is with you for life. And we all learned that Darwin got it all right, not withstanding that the article in the world's premier peer reviewed science journal, Science, "Did Darwin get it all right?' had the subtitle that unfortunately he did not. [2]

And yet here we are on a beautiful Earth brimming with life. From the scorching 100° C plus waters of thermal vents to the frigidity of the Antarctic ice, from Sun-soaked Saharan deserts to the blackness of the oceanic abyssal depths, life has staked out its habitat. Life is hearty. It has proven itself to be so. But by random reactions it did not start.

Statistics reveal the numerical paucity for randomness being the source of the stable order evidenced in life. The Torah brings the same information in the subtle wording of "And there was evening and there was morning," the closing phrase of each of the six days of the first Genesis week. Since the Sun is mentioned only on day four (though the ancient commentaries tell us that the Sun was there earlier but only became visible in the sky on the fourth day), Nahmanides realizes that there must be a deeper meaning to the words, evening and morning. Evening means sunset. Morning means sunrise. No Sun, no sunset and no sunrise. So how can the Bible justify the statement that "there was evening and there was morning" on those earlier days prior to the Sun being mentioned on day four?

Almost a millennium ago, Nahmanides brought the solution to the quandary. As the Sun sets, he teaches, vision becomes blurry, mixed. Accordingly, he teaches that the root or implied meaning of the word usually translated as evening, erev, is mixture, chaos. The implied meaning of the word usually translated as morning, boker, is just the opposite. As the Sun rises, vision becomes clear, orderly. Individual objects and colors can be discerned. The implied meaning of boker has within it the concept of order. The flow in simple terms is from PM to AM. But in deeper meaning, a far more significant truth is taught, six times over, at each day's conclusion. There was a remarkable flow, contrary to that which is normally observed in an unguided nature. Normally, in all events, order degrades to disorder. That is why leaves decay on the ground and a cup of hot tea becomes cool as it remains on a table. But in this particular part of the universe, the opposite occurred and the Torah emphasizes this six times over in the subtle language of "And there was evening and there was morning." Chaos gave way to order. The ordered complexity of life arose from a mix of rocks and water and a few simple molecules, and even more remotely from the chaotic burst of energy that marked the big bang creation, an energy brimming with potential, only awaiting the organizing realization at the word of God. "And God said, let there be ..." In this part of the universe chaos gave way to life.

And if the materialist view of the world is correct, it did it via random reactions. We've already discussed the extremely thin assumptions required to account even vaguely for the start of life. The starting of life likely has vastly different physical and chemical requirements than those needed to sustain that life following its inauguration. Can random mutations actually have produced the ordered complexity of life, or even a viable protein in our universe that is so well designed for sustaining life?

But let's be more conservative in our quest and accept that somehow life started and now we need that early form of life to mutate and climb step by step the fabled mountain of improbability.

Mutations that are to be passed on to the next generation must occur in the genetic material, that is the DNA of the reproductive line. That mutation would then result in a variant (mutated) protein which might produce a new effective organ, say a system leading to a kidney or the precursor of a pump that might develop into a heart. The neo-Darwinian concept of evolution claims the development of life resulted from random mutations on the DNA that yielded these varied organic structures. Some of the variations were beneficial, some not. The rigors of the environment selected for the beneficial changes and eliminated those that were detrimental.

It's a persuasively devised theory but let's look at that process rigorously, especially with the insights of molecular biology.

The building blocks of all life are proteins. And proteins are precisely organized strings of amino acids. Information held on the DNA determines which and in what order the amino acids are formed to yield the end-product, the protein. If the DNA mutates, we get a different amino acid and hence a different protein. And now comes the problem of random mutations in the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution.

The genetic system of all life is totally coded. An example of code would be the Morse code sounds, ‘dot dot dot dash' which look, sound or seem nothing like the letter ‘V' for which they code. If you did not know that this sequence of sounds, ‘dot dot dot dash,' represented a ‘V' you'd not have even a hint as to its meaning. That is one purpose of a code. And so it is with the information encoded on the DNA chromosomes. The data on the strands of DNA (the chromosomes) in our cells contain that crucial amino acid and protein building information as assorted groupings of four different nucleic acids. Nucleic acids have absolutely zero physical resemblance to either amino acids or proteins. The information is totally coded.

In nature, this lack of similarity between code and final product ensures that there is no logical feedback from protein or amino acid to the assumedly random mutations on the DNA. Information flow is one way: DNA to amino acid to protein. New mutant variations of proteins arise through mutations (changes) in the sequencing order of the nucleic acids on the DNA with no physical hint of the final protein product. These random, unguided mutations are the determining factors in gain or loss of that next generation.

In all known life, there are primarily 20 different amino acids. Stringing these twenty amino acids together in varied sequences produces varied proteins, just as intelligently stringing together the 26 letters of the English alphabet in varied sequences will produce varied sentences and sonnets. Scientific literature suggests that all of life is made from varied combinations of several hundred thousand proteins. Humans have in the order of 80,000 proteins. [The estimated number of proteins in humans varies among laboratories reporting their results.] Other forms of life have different numbers of proteins. But all life, whether animal, vegetable, microbial or fungal, draws from the same ‘bag' of functional proteins. That being the case, it is not surprising that we humans contain some of the same proteins found in plants and animals that are very different from us. Proteins, other than those within the cluster of those used by viable life, can form by mutations on the DNA sequencing of nucleic acids. Cells actually have a highly sophisticated mechanism that checks for mutations early in the molecular progression that leads to protein formation. Upon discovery of a mutation, the molecule is either sent back for revamping or destroyed. But some mutations slip by the check post. These may be either useless, neutral, adding no selective advantage for survival, or lethal. A painful example of a mutation leading to a lethal protein would be a mutation that becomes a precursor for cancer.

So we have these few hundred thousand proteins that are viable in life. Others appear not to be. But let's say we are off in our estimate. In place of a few hundred thousand viable proteins, let there be 100 million or billion or even a trillion viable proteins.

And now to the crucial numbers.

Let me be transparent. I am not debating how a fin could mutate and eventually become a foot. Fins and feet have many structural elements, especially bones, in common. With a stretch of imagination, we can envision a series of changes, such as sequence repetitions, that would morph a fin into a foot. But how do random mutations initially produce the genetic information that would lead to the molecular structure of any sort of bone? Or muscles that eventually become the pumps that are prelude to a heart?

The total number of possible combinations is 20 times 20 times 20 repeated 200 times. The result is 10.260, a one with 260 zeros after it.

Proteins vary in length from strings of a few hundred to a few thousand amino acids. Consider a relatively short protein, such as 200 amino acids long. Into each of the 200 spaces along the protein any one of the 20 amino acids found in life can fall. That means the total number of possible combinations is 20 times 20 times 20 repeated 200 times. The result is 20 to the power of 200 or ten to the power of 260 (10.260), a one with 260 zeros after it; or a billion billion billion repeated 29 times. From this vast biological grab bag of options, we are told that nature by random chance mutations has been able to form the few hundred thousand proteins useful to earthly life and upon which nature could exert its selective pressures.

Let us assume that the entire hydrosphere, all of the approximately 1.4 x 10.21 liters of water in all the oceans and icebergs and lakes on earth, was imbibed in biological cells each weighing a billionth of a gram. We would have had 10.33 cells reproducing, mutating, actively moving this grand process of evolution. If each cell divided each and every second since the appearance of liquid water on earth some four billion years ago, the total number of mutations, or stated another way, the number of evolutionary trials, would be 1050. While vast, this number pales when compared with the 10.260 potential failing options for a single protein. Hitting upon the useful combinations did not, and could not, and will not happen by chance. And every biologist enamored with neo-Darwinian evolution knows this truth.

The first form of life, a microbe, mutates and either advances or perishes as it starts to climb the mountain of improbability by random mutations on the DNA that in time will by lead to kidneys, bones, liver, heart, eyes, brains, mind, sentience. It has to choose randomly from the vast hyperspace of biological possible combinations, the tiny fraction that are beneficial or at least neutral. Clearly there must be other factors that limit the types of mutations that can occur. There are, but not as randomly as the materialist biologist would have it. And that is the entire point. Nature is skewed toward life.

And that is exactly what one of the most widely used biology textbooks, Biochemistry, by D. Voet and J. Voet, states, though in subtle wording. "Keep in mind that only a small fraction of the myriads of possible peptide sequences are likely to have stable conformation. Evolution has, of course, selected such sequences for use in biological systems." Just how did ‘evolution' become so clever that it could ‘of course select' from the ‘myriads' of failures the few that function?

In the March 2008 issue of Scientific American, Jon Seger, professor of biology at the University of Utah tells us how, of course following the central dogma of Darwinian adherents, and neglecting the statistical improbability of it being driven by random mutations: "Within a population, each individual mutation is extremely rare. ...But huge numbers of mutations may occur every generation in the species as a whole. [That is because each member of the population may only have a few mutations, but when multiplied by the total number of mating members, the total number of mutations per generation can be very large.] ... The vast majority of the mutations are harmless or at least tolerable and a very few are actually helpful. These enter the population as exceedingly rare alternative versions of the genes in which they occur. ... Very small effects on survival and reproduction may significantly affect the long term rates at which different mutations accumulate in particular genes. They just accumulate where needed, first one, then another and another over many generations. Although getting two or more new cooperating mutations together in the same genome may take time, they will eventually find one another in a sexual species [and since by getting together they provide an advantage over the former configuration, the organism with this new advantage will now flourish relative to the less adapted neighbor], assuming they are not lost from the population."

All that Professor Seger wrote is largely true. Indeed "the vast majority of the mutations are harmless or at least tolerable," though many may be lethal. But even if none were lethal, the problem is not the ultimate "natural selection" according to the rigors of the natural environment, selection between good and better, strong and stronger, more fertile and less fertile. Those selections are at the final stage of the process. And we see it verified each time as a strong lion vanquishes or kills a weaker competitor for the right to fertilize the females of the pride. But first nature must produce those variations of advantage via random mutations of the nucleic acids on the genome that change the chain of amino acids that form the protein that alters the viability of the "animal."

The statistically unrealistic possibility that the fabrication of viable proteins could have occurred by unguided random mutations is simply ignored. That life developed from the simple to the complex is, in my opinion, a certainty. What drove that development is the central debate.

Simon Conway Morris is professor of evolutionary palaeobiology at Cambridge University and Fellow of the Royal Society of England. He is arguably the world's leading living paleontologist. In his book, Life's Solutions, Conway Morris states the conundrum perfectly: "The number of potential ‘blind alleys' is so enormous that in principle all the time since the beginning of the universe would be insufficient to find the one in a trillion trillion solutions that actually work.... Life is simply too complex to be assembled on any believable time scale. ... [E]volution [has the] uncanny to be ability to find the short cuts across the multidimensional hyperspace of biological reality. ..."

That life developed from the simple to the complex is in my opinion a fact revealed both in Genesis, Chapter One and by the data held in the fossil record. But how nature discovered the short cuts that produced the development of life, the flow from the simple to the complex, eludes the effectiveness of random mutations in the genetic material.

Noble laureate, Professor of Biology, Harvard University, the late George Wald, may have provided us with the answer to the wonder of life in an essay he wrote titled "Life and Mind in the Universe" for the 1984 Quantum Biology Symposium:

"It has occurred to me lately -- I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities – that both questions [the origin of consciousness in humans and of life from non-living matter] might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality – the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create: science-, art-, and technology-making animals. In them the universe begins to know itself." [3]

The opening word of the Bible, b'raisheet, holds the answer to the conundrum of life and mind in our universe. B'raisheet in its simple sense translates as ‘In the beginning of.' But in the first sentence of the Genesis, there is no object in the Hebrew text for the preposition ‘of.' We would read "In the beginning of God created the heavens and the earth." In the beginning of what? So the Greek and the Latin merely deleted the ‘of' which of course is ridiculous and borders on the heretical, as if these ancient translators felt they could better state the facts than did the Bible.

Wisdom is ubiquitous, the substrate of every particle of the world and most evident in the brains and minds of humans as we puzzle over our cosmic origins.

The penultimate interpreter of the Hebrew Text, Rashi, almost a thousand years elucidated the subtlety of that opening word. The compound nature of B'raisheetholds the clue. Referring to information brought in the almost two millennia old Jerusalem Translation of the Bible into Aramaic, a sister language of Hebrew, he brings the answer. B'raisheet is a compound word meaning [B'] with or using [raisheet] a first cause of wisdom God created the heavens and the earth. That the ‘first cause' is defined as wisdom arises (as Rashi pointed out in his commentary on Genesis1:1) from Proverbs (8:12, 22 –24). "I am wisdom. ... God acquired me [wisdom] as the beginning of His way, the first of His works of old. I [wisdom] was established from everlasting, from the beginning, from before there ever was an earth. When there were no depths I [wisdom] was brought forth ..."

Wisdom, the totally metaphysical emanation from the Creator, yielded the big bang creation of the physical universe within which we dwell.

With wisdom (Proverbs) and mind (Wald), or in the language of quantum mechanics, information (J.A. Wheeler), being the essence of existence, the puzzle of the origin of sentient life able to be aware of the wonder of its own existence is solved. Wisdom is ubiquitous, the substrate of every particle of the world and most evident in the brains and minds of humans as we puzzle over our cosmic origins.

The success of life is indeed ‘written into the fabric of the universe.'

Our cosmic genesis in a nut shell

Concisely stated, the wisdom of God embedded in the energy of the big bang creation laid the basis for that seemingly inert energy to metamorphose and become alive. And not merely alive, but even more than that. Alive and brimming with the sentient awareness of being alive. As Prof Wald stated so well, "It is mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create: science-, art-, and technology-making animals. In them the universe begins to know itself."

For a good discussion of the irrelevance of the Stanley Miller experiment as it relates to the origin of life on earth, see among many publications, the totally materialistic book, IN THE BEGINNING, published by The Natural History Museum, London

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About the Author

Dr. Gerald Schroeder earned his BSc, MSc and double-Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics and Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught physics for seven years. While a consultant at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission he participated in the formulation of nuclear non-proliferation treaties with the former Soviet Union and witnessed the testing of six atomic bombs. He has served as a consultant to various governments worldwide and has been published in Time, Newsweek and Scientific American. He is the author of Genesis and the Big Bang, the discovery of harmony between modern science and the Bible, now in seven languages. He is also the author of The Science of God and The Hidden Face of God. Dr. Schroeder is currently a lecturer at Aish Jerusalem for the Discovery Seminar, Essentials program, Jerusalem Fellowships, and Executive Learning Center ― focusing on the topics of evolution, cosmology, and age of the universe.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 40

(39)
chaim Kwass,
February 16, 2015 1:37 AM

loved the article !

Amazing article!I would like to ask people ...is this required investigation for everyone ?What of the so called pahuta yid or simple Jew who simply "accepted "?Does he or she -or can he or she -exist anymore in the 21st century with all the scoffers we tragically are bombarded with in our galus ?

(38)
Anonymous,
October 18, 2012 2:24 AM

These articles by Dr. Gerald Schroeder are enlightening

Shalom Dr. Schroeder,
I am a bat Noah. I am currently reading your book - 'God According to God' - which I downloaded to my Kindle, and I find it totally fascinating, so much in fact I couldn't put it down and didn't get to sleep last night until dawn. :)
It just puts things together in such a compelling and logical way. Thank you for writing this book, it clarifies things that I have wondered about. I am now in my 70's, and I am learning so much that I never knew before. Thank you for writing these articles, and your book.
Shalom,
Frances (Rachav)

(37)
Mark Gary Blumenthal, MD, MPH,
February 6, 2011 2:25 PM

I respect Dr. Schroeder, but...

I am both an observant Jew and a medical scientist. However, I make no attempt to reconcile religion and science.
I hold one viewpoint in each hand, and accept them as two equally true viewpoints, each in its own domain.
For ultimate truths about the universe and how best to live in it, I rely on Judaism, the ‘esoteric’ domain, as it were.
For empirical knowledge of this concrete world, I rely upon science and the scientific method, the ‘exoteric’ domain.
By the rules of philosophical logic, articulated magnificently by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his works Metaphysics and Physics, religion relies on DEDUCTIVE reasoning, beginning with the First Principle, i.e. God, and derives all other principles by deduction.
Thus, religion begins and ends with ‘Ultimate Truth’.
Scientific method relies on INDUCTIVE reasoning, beginning with data collection, data analysis, theory generation, and theory testing using statistical methods.
Unlike religion, science cannot arrive at ‘Ultimate Truth’, but that is not its appropriate goal.
I respect what the Dr. Schroeder is attempting to accomplish, but I consider his rationale inadequate for any serious philosopher of science or religion.
Scientific reductionism AND religious reductionism attempt to anthropomorphize God and the physical cosmos and thus undermine the essential mystery of each.
Dr. Schroeder is not the first to attempt such reconciliation, nor will he be the last. The Rambam attempted do the same after reading Aristotle in Arabic.
IMHO, Maimonides got Judaism right, but he got Aristotle wrong.
Dr. Schroeder’s article’s represents a way to find peace and comfort by reconciling an irreconcilable dialectic and thus achieving ‘certainty’.
I prefer to find peace and comfort by accepting the inherent mystery within the two worldviews.

(36)
Leonardo,
January 20, 2011 2:27 AM

Thank you

I appreciate the article. I will have to read and reread it again as it contains so much information and depth. It makes me appreciate the Genesis account even more so. Why Dawkins get so much attention eludes me. He has done damage to the young and impressionable with his crass attitude and hubis. In contrast your writings contain the purpose, depth and beauty of poetry.

(35)
fred,
January 7, 2011 10:42 PM

Page 1

In visualizing the origin of life, one would turn to page 1 of Genesis. To begin with, Stephen Hawking, in all his might, cannot explain the coincidence of the biblical account of creation and the scientific theory. On day one, each verse represents a dimension. Thus Genesis 1:4, is time dividing light and darkness. A ray is the effect of time expansion (the cause). Energy broken down, to decay and reformulate into a fuel for future generations. Chaos, then low entropy. Then the second day. Time and space expand. Rays of matter to be disbursed through the infant heaven. Again chaos followed by lowered entropy. And then day three: Material manifests from rays of fused radiation. Then the seeding of the earth. The allowance of the exact amount of heat and pressure is provided, acting on gases, forming free radicals and amino acids. Prevention was overruled, seeding was sustained. Disorder to order. The gathering of the seas and the seeding of the earth on day three, along with the placement of the sun and moon, and the formation of the stars on day four suggests a deliberate act; in direct contrast with accidental contingencies. Revealing the essence to preserve, and the rite to decay. In the billions of years of nature induced evolution, man is created at the exact spot in time. To look at the origins of life from billions of years away, and his sentience is directed towards a book of ancient Authorship. As our nature is to evolve, would not that include a Supreme Entity? Could not qualia be a fusion of sapience and sentience, also known as wisdom and understanding? In a low entropy system there is no wonder, only reassurance. Knowledge is the reward of interest. Continuing the evolutionary system, for the betterment of good.

(34)
ruth housman,
October 25, 2010 7:46 PM

Let there be Light

This is a well designed article, and I deeply perceive the beauty and truth of what Dr. Schroeder is saying. But who is seeing what I am saying, and doing so presently in commenting on line, so constantly? I do it for a reason. Maybe I have "designer genes".
I live in an intelligent universe, and I am saying the One ness, that mirror that does pervade all life, wherever we look, in intense and ongoing metaphor, is deeply a story, yes, a Story, and that story is about One. One God, One Universe (means One verse) and also it's a story that is deeply about us all coded within the words we use.
Right, B'resh sheet, transliterated, And, RESH has meaning. Look this up, Read Seidman. Read about the mystic significance of the letters and SEE, the SHIN in shine, within the word. SEE, how SEA itself, the ocean, aurally is also for SEE, and SEE, the significance of WATER, of WATT and WATER. Start hearing the aural connects, and listen to me, perhaps an oracle, with your auricle.
There's a story here that surrounds us all, and I say, it's the most beautiful story EVER told. And YES, this symphony has a conductor.

(33)
yael,
September 17, 2010 12:32 AM

we ourselves, jewish ppl belive in teh big bang ! but that hashem made the big bang happpen !just like that RAMBAN says!

(32)
gs,
November 12, 2009 4:07 AM

Whatever begins to exist has a cause

Consider the kalam argument:
Whatever begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Again - I believe the Second Law of Thermodynamics is proof of the universe having a beginning. So, the implications are that something supernatural was the cause.The quantum vacuum didn't come into being from nothing either - that fluctuating energy has to be accounted for as well. It seems that arguments against creation only push back the argument, and are never able to refute it.

(31)
Zachariah,
November 9, 2009 6:24 AM

2nd law of thermodynaics, Not necessarily a proof

n response to a comment made earlier, stating the 2nd law of dynamics as proof, it's a risky jump.
The second law states that entropy is constantly increasing. An ordered system becomes more and more chaotic. When we drop a blob of ink into water, it starts ordered, separate from the water. As time increases, these ink molecules pervade the water and become chaotically organized. This is an absolute law, entropy can only become slightly organized if the overall system becomes more chaotic (e.g. a refrigerator gives off more heat).
But what we haven't considered is the concept of a black hole. While we are currently experiencing increasing entropy, what occurs within a black hole? Remember that a black hole is a vacuum, a zero mass that has extreme gravitational pull. What occurs within these black holes is unknown. But a hypothesis that energy/mass becomes more organized is not terribly farfetched.

(30)
Anonymous,
November 9, 2009 6:23 AM

2nd law of thermodynamics, Not necessarily a proof

What we do know however is that we are not headed for a big crunch (antonym to big bang). We are quite sure of the origin point, or the location of this big bang. We can calculate the velocities at which we leave this origin, and can consider our masses. These forces are much greater than the gravitational pull, pulling us back. We are actually still accelerating outwards. So we do know that a big crunch is highly unlikely. Given that this is the case, we can expect that a big black hole in the center of the universe is not going to reverse this thermal death, or entropy. Remember that a black hole doesn't necessarily suck us in. If the sun imploded into a black hole, earth would remain in regular orbit around this new formed black hole. It would exert the same amount of gravitational pull as when it were a star. We wouldn't have light anymore, but at least we don't get sucked into it.
So we can rule out a black hole totally reversing entropy. Given that this is the case, we can reason that if a big crunch hasn't occurred this time, it has never occurred previously. The big bang used all the energy/mass in the bang, and we know of no additional mass; so the bang would be as powerful as any theoretical time beforehand. We can reason that this was the first big bang, and that it will not be reversed. Thus this begs for an origin, and thus a force that started the ball rolling (and BANG). This originating force, whatever you may call it (be it energy, light, who knows), this force that started the whole BANG is the supernatural force I believe in (supernatural since it didn't have a start, thus violating a basic law of nature). Maybe this supernatural force is energy itself; maybe it is light. Irrelevant of what it is, I label it as "G-d" and it is what I believe in.
-Zac
Mathematical Physics major at the
Australian National University

(29)
Ryan,
November 5, 2009 7:30 AM

G-d and evolution

Personally, I think G-d and evolution are not necessarily condtradictory. Perhaps evolution is G-d's mechanism for creating an enormous amount of diversity among life. I do not have a problem with the idea that humans are decsendants of other primates. I do not believe our body is what makes us created in the image of G-d, G-d has no body. Although we owe our physical existence to G-d, it is not what makes us created in his image. What makes humans created in the image of G-d is our souls and free will. The body is a tool for people to demonstrate they were created in the image of G-d, but is not what makes us special.

(28)
Anonymous,
November 2, 2009 3:31 AM

What Ever Happened To Honesty?

Probabilities are performed before an event... not after. If I give you 4 cards from a standard deck, the odds of you getting those exact cards in that order, whatever they happen to be is: 1/52 x 1/51 x 1/50 x 1/49 = about one in ten million Yet, there you are holding those cards. We have to some basic understanding of the system in order to make probabilistic estimates. We only have one universe and nothing to compare it to.

(27)
robertpo,
November 2, 2009 12:14 AM

Must read the book...

It's been my sparrow song for all my life. Probability didn't have a chance. There wasn't enough time. Hope the book quantifies it more thoroughly. toda

(26)
Anonymous,
October 26, 2009 6:40 AM

Response to Karl(8)th - Where did God come from?

Karl,
I am not qualified to answer where God came from.
I would like to point out the String Theorist have been adding dimensions at every whim. To the current set of theorists the universe is a multidimensional playground.
People believe Einstein claimed time was the fourth dimension, I doubt Einstein believed that. What we do know is that time and space can be warped, stretched, by gravity and relative speed. Time in essence stops when traveling at the speed of light.
In the equation E=MC^2 the C stands for the speed of light in a vacuum. C or the speed of light is the only constant in the equation. I won't bore you with scriptures that equate God to light.
But let's assume the Theorists are right and there are more dimensions that can be seen with the eye. Could that be where anti-matter comes from? Why is there so little anti-matter in this universe? Is because anti-mater spends the majority of time in the 'other' dimensions?
If the big bang theories are correct, the amount of mater vs. anti-mater should be roughly equal.. it is not.
What if your soul was confined to these three dimensions, by your earthly body?
Let's try and imagine a universe in two dimensions, who is visited by someone from the third dimension. (a book called Flatland by Abbott?, tried to describe that.) What could that 3 dimensional being do? The being could float above the 2 dimensional plane. Look around and look inside living beings.
Now imagine a 3 dimensional world, visited by someone from the 4th dimension? What would that being be capable of?
I guess the point is, Where did God come from? The fact that we don't have an answer, doesn't mean he doesn't exist.
Peace

(25)
Karl,
October 25, 2009 2:03 PM

More errors

Gain of function has occurred, Richard Lenski's work is a wonderful example of this. Increase of information can easily be found with a duplicated gene, then increase of function can be one of those copies mutating to achieve another function. What about this simple example can't lead to evolution? And you have yet to offer me a definition of kind. Are all lizards and snakes kinds? Or only snakes for one kind, and lizards another? What are Hyenas? How about Hyraxes? When you say the bible appears correct, do you mean a completely literal interpretation? Entropy is not a loss of energy, it is merely the apparently inevitable conversion of many types of energy, to that of heat energy. Why does your creator get to be eternal, and outside of the rules? Some theories of the universe are fully acceptable in the realms of mathematics, and are also testable (once the LHC gets going).

(24)
gs,
October 25, 2009 5:28 AM

Second Law of Thermodynamics proof

Another compelling reason to believe that a Creator, existing unbound by the fetters of time, an uncaused cause, did indeed create the universe is our Second Law of Thermodynamics. There was a point in time at the beginning - the Big Bang? - where all energy was in available form - zero entropy. But the universe is continually losing available energy, winding down, like a clock. So the universe had a beginning, and it is winding down toward its end - proceeding toward greater and greater entropy. Thus the universe is not eternal. What made all this energy? Who wound the clock? There must be a Creator. It does appear our Creator is fond of laws, of boundaries. So when Karl in # 8 says that atheists have a problem with the question of where God comes from, I think the answer is that God exists outside of all these laws and of time itself. It is hard to imagine anything without a beginning or end, but that is the nature and limitation of our created brains.

(23)
Jeannie Day,
October 24, 2009 3:15 PM

Kinds and Mutations

Karl, Biblical creationists believe that animals were created according to their KINDS. There is considerable diversity within created kinds today. For example, horses, donkeys and zebras are all believed to have descended from an original created kind, yet today they are classified as different species. So the kinds are not species. The classification system used today is relative.
I should have used the words “loss of function” rather than “loss of information” and “gain of function” rather than “gain of information”. Mutations produce new alleles (variant forms of a gene) and certainly add variety, but molecules-to-man evolution requires the generation of NEW information to build new, complex, interdependent biochemical pathways. Despite the deceptive wording found in the gain-of-function definition, there is NO increase of information or improvement of biochemical pathways. Without a mechanism for developing such pathways, evolution is nothing more than a myth. Instead, what we observe fits exactly with what we would expect if the Bible is true. Living things are very well designed. Errors introduced by mutations do not build new, well integrated biochemical pathways; instead they often cause disease.
Book suggestion:
Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome by John C. Sanford
Dr Sanford is an applied geneticist semi-retired from Cornell University and now with the Institute of Creation Research. He is also the inventor of the ‘gene gun’, widely used in the genetic modification of crops. In this book the reader is confronted with compelling reasons to reject the claim that mutations plus natural selection have led to the marvels found in nature.

(22)
Karl,
October 22, 2009 11:44 PM

Define kind?

I've heard the word "kind" many many times, yet never with any sort of actual definition, or border.
As for genetic variance, unless you accept the supernatural, the only place from which that can come is from mutation. Mutation can be good or bad, it is merely a change it what is currently present. 111111 contains just as much information as 111112. There is no loss in information, only a change, many times not very beneficial , but far more often, completely neutral (those reams of "junk" DNA contain a lot of potential information, that sometimes needs only the right switch to turn on old genes (for instance chickens still have the genes for teeth, but unless artificially altered, obviously don't develop them). Duplication of genes is very very advantageous, as it allows for one version of the gene to then undergo mutation, whilst not being deleterious to the organism, and allowing for changes in the final protein produced, allowing new (and more importantly, useful) information.
Whilst talking on information, I dislike that premise that information must be artificially created. There is a wealth of information in the ripple of a puddle, the spectrum of a star, and various other non-intelligently created phenomena.

(21)
Phil,
October 22, 2009 3:53 AM

penultimate

Dear commenters 17 and 18.
It is abundantly clear that Mr. Schroeder did not mean "second to last" in any sense, nor did he even really mean "ultimate." I bet he was thinking of "quintessential" or "preeminent."
(Fans of rock star Ronnie James Dio might remember groaning when he referred to his band as "the penultimate rock band.")
OK, that was really unimportant compared to the essay, which was quite good!

(20)
Anonymous,
October 21, 2009 8:14 AM

Thank you.

Dear Dr. Schroeder,
I have commented on your article but have been remiss in thanking you.Thank you, I continue to enjoy your article. I am the one whos "brain aches." Like the universe, my impressions of your article keep expanding-I just can't take enough of it in, in one sitting-please forgive my ineptitude.I think you are perhaps the "Genius" on the Big Bang. ( I hope you are lol on the slight play on words to your book title).

(19)
Jeannie Day,
October 20, 2009 11:01 PM

Mutations

Karl, you wrote: "...you are almost correct. Natural selection indeed doesn't add any information, mutation does that." This topic is deeper than can be covered here, but here are some thoughts.
Much of what is called mutation is actually genetic variance. Evolution requires a net increase in the quantity and quality of genetic information. For an organism to evolve to another organism new genetic information must be added. In order for a mutation to play a role in evolution a great many of them would need to occur. The problem is that mutations ordinarily cause a loss of information, sometimes a transfer of information, but never an increase of information. Thus, mutations go the wrong way, because evolution requires limitless genetic expansion. Instead of an explanation for origin of life, mutations are actually an explanation of the origin of death and disease.
RE: species- You commented: “Would you guess that dogs and bears are closely related?” That is interpretation only. G_d created animal “kinds” which represents a group of animals that can mate with others in that group. The classification “species” is not synonymous with “kinds”. There are no undisputed links in the so-called evolutionary tree. I’m not referring only to creationists, but evolutionists.

(18)
Anonymous,
October 20, 2009 7:11 PM

penultimate

I was also thrown by Rashi as penultimate, second to best. I presume that you chose the correct word. But who do you reckon is the is the ultimate interpreter ?

(17)
Shua Cohen,
October 20, 2009 5:03 PM

Penultimate vs. Ultimate Interpretor of Torah

To Yak Fatzko (comment no. 12): I can't, of course, speak for Dr. Schroeder, but perhaps what he meant to imply by calling Rashi the "penultimate interpreter of the Hebrew text" is that in the realm of human understanding of Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu is the "ultimate" interpreter of the text. However, since Moshe did not leave us with a line-by-line explanation, we depend on Rashi as the "second" best authority, i.e. the "penultimate" interpreter. After techias hamaysim, Moshe Rabbeinu will (once again) have the "last" word.

Yak Fatzko,
July 30, 2012 2:07 PM

Clever answer

Wow! Excellent "dan lkaf zechus". Well done.

(16)
Karl,
October 20, 2009 3:51 PM

Natural selection

Jeannie day, you are almost correct. Natural selection indeed doesn't add any information, mutation does that. A zebra crossed with a horse will indeed produce an offspring, an almost certainly infertile, and thus evolutionary unimportant one. It's possible to cross many animals, but just because they can produce live offspring, doesn't mean they are the same species.
Would you guess that dogs and bears are closely related? Or perhaps better would be that hyenas are in fact more closely related to cats, and not dogs? Marsupial animals look almost identical to some mammalian animals we are used to, and yet they are all more closely related to each other than to any mammal.
And as for the comment of " articles like these...
...tend to make my brain ache.This gives new meaning to something out of nothing.I am glad God does not require all this explanation.Thank you." I feel sorry for you. If you only hope to have such simple, and ultimately pointless answers to all your questions, your life must be lacking in wonderment.

(15)
Anonymous,
October 20, 2009 7:21 AM

articles like these...

...tend to make my brain ache.This gives new meaning to something out of nothing.I am glad God does not require all this explanation.Thank you.

(14)
Jeannie Day,
October 19, 2009 11:22 PM

Natural selection

Many people misunderstand natural selection, thinking it is synonymous with molecules to man evolution. Natural selection is an observable process by which organisms possessing specific characteristics survive better than others in a given environment. The result is a loss of information not a gain. In natural selection, birds are still birds, fish are still fish, cats are still cats, etc. It does not lead to the formation of a different kind of animal. Both zebras and horses are from the horse family, so a zebra and horse mating would produce a zorse!
"Where did G_d come from?" The very first verse in the Bible declares: "In the beginning G_d...." The Bible makes it clear that G_d is outside time, is eternal, with no beginning or end.

(13)
Hanan Druker,
October 19, 2009 6:57 PM

Fallacy

You say:
"Even if we scientists eventually attain a ‘theory of everything,' we will still be left with the question of ‘why?"
The fallacy in this is that you are presupposing that there NEEDS to be some ultimate "why?" Perhaps the logical answer is simply: Because!! It may not be as romantic and fulfilling as to there needing to be some ultimate answer, but it may be the truth. Why are we here? Why did this all get created? Well...Because. Because A led to B and B led to C and so forth.
Fact of the matter is, the fact that religion now is only dealing with they "why" is a loss for religion. Religion used to deal with the "hows" as well as the "why". Now that we don't use religion for the "hows" and instead, we champion that we have the "why" on our side. But like I said, this is only because we presuppose there is some ultimate "why."

(12)
Yak Fatzko,
October 19, 2009 11:45 AM

Rashi's place in the universe

Doc Schroeder, you write: "The penultimate interpreter of the Hebrew Text, Rashi, almost a thousand years elucidated the subtlety of that opening word."
"Penultimate" means "second to last" - certainly not true of Rashi historically.
I think you might have meant "ultimate" as in "best and greatest"?
:)
Best,
Yak

(11)
shlomo,
October 19, 2009 5:39 AM

atoms

dr schroeder forgot to mention the wonderful construction of an atom. atom in itself should be considered, before even we think about the evolution and dna. atom is as intricate as a solar system with orbiting electrons and atomic nucleous in the center. what holds it together, what makes it 'stick' with other atoms in a strikt order, etc

(10)
Jeannie Day,
October 19, 2009 1:11 AM

Harmonizing Scripture with "science" is a problem

Science is a tool and can do nothing on its own. Why is the big bang, which cannot be observed, considered scientific while supernatural creation is rejected as unscientific? How did the natural laws of the universe come from the random big bang? Where did this singularity that supposedly contained all of the space and energy of the universe come from? Why are we always trying to harmonize science and the Bible? Scientific theories come and go. In fact, there is much opposition now to the big bang even in atheistic circles because of its many problems. What will those who accept the big bang as support for the Bible do when another model is adopted by secular scientists? Secular models constantly change, but G_d's word can be trusted. There is no need to compromise Scripture to understand the universe.

(9)
David,
October 19, 2009 12:42 AM

Bravo...

Thank you for this clear insight.

(8)
Karl,
October 18, 2009 8:13 PM

Lets just not ask the obvious "So where did god come from?"

The statistics used in the sonnet example skip nicely the other half of evolution, natural selection, a common strawman.
But misunderstanding of evolution is commonplace, and thus forgivable, but the constant avoidance of the "Where did god come from?" question is the most irritating. It's basically a competition of likelyhood, a mindless universe occuring, and following simple rules, replicating molecules, and all the glory of life. Or the occurrence of some superbeing, then creating all of this. The is the problem most atheists have when people try and argue the whole "Where did the universe come from?".

(7)
Doris bolef,
October 18, 2009 7:06 PM

Wow! That was fantastic! In easily understood terms, it explains our origins, the universe (and possibly universes) Very well done.
Many thanks,
Doris Bolef

(6)
Dr. Alex Pister,
October 18, 2009 6:57 PM

It's just a desire to avoid G-d's objective morality

When one hears the endless discussion about atheist belief that existence just popped out of nowhere and somehow “luck” prevailed to lead to the universe you have to just say “good luck” to the atheist. If someone were to tell you that a cast iron water pump in a field just randomly happened as a fluke you’d laugh at them. A simple water pump. But, the human heart-arguably the most sophisticated pump in existence-is a fluke? Creation bespeaks a Creator. Somebody built that cast iron pump and we all know it. Really, people just can’t stomach the responsibility of owning up to the objective moral demands of G-d. By denying G-d’s existence with outrageous theories and ridiculous hypotheses the atheist tries to avoid living by the blueprint of life, the Torah. The Torah is God’s blueprint for living for all of mankind. And we Jews are charged with the spreading of the truth of the Torah. For those of us who “get” this we should devote all of our abilities and resources to spreading G-d’s Torah.

(5)
bernie siegel, md,
October 18, 2009 6:26 PM

great silence and not a big bang

creation comes from loving, intelligent, conscious, energy
there was consciousness and consciousness was with god and consciousness was god

(4)
Anonymous,
October 18, 2009 5:49 PM

Excellent article.

Certainly many will find the article too long and scientific. However, it makes so much sense.

(3)
ruth housman,
October 18, 2009 4:15 PM

the connectivity of all life

It's a journey, a journey of soul towards God. There are myriad ways to perceive the wonder and this article is such.
For me, the proof has to be, in my own small life, a story that is about connectivity, because I am experiencing massive provable synchronicity by way of a life. This story I am recording, re "cording", is about language and words, the power of the letters, and it's a weave, that is simply, as massively brilliant as any one of the examples given above. I believe because in my own life, I have, the Proof.
I keep writing and recording and also, going around the Globe, wherever I can, and all the time, massively, this hail continues, as hail is also for greeting, and one time, a coincidence so beautiful, was such that is actually hailed, meaning a story in which the sky darkened and there were big chunks of hail. I couldn't possibly make up these connects and the Diary keeps growing.
Richard Dawkins will not look at other ways of seeing, because he's totally locked into his perceptions, and for me, given a cosmic view, and also a comic view of life, I see that God has dominion over us all, meaning also, Mr. Dawkins, and that God is definitely, laughing.
I do believe we're entering a new state of consciousness and that in myriad ways, we will all "arrive" at the same place.

(2)
rona,
October 18, 2009 4:10 PM

The Torah is the Truth

I do not understand any of the mumbo jumbo that these scientists proclaim. I do understand that I have a neshama, becasue my neshama(soul) tells me every minute that G-d is my creator and the creator of everything; just as the Torah(G-d's word) tells us in B'reisheit. If these agnostics and atheists weren't so full of themselves they would take the opportunity to study the Torah as fully and carefully as they study 'science' , and come up with the truth. These people do not want to live according to the consequences of that research. From the study of the Torah and the Prophets and gemara and mishnah and all the brilliant insightful writings of our great rabbis we have the truth explained. The catch is you must obey Hashem and the laws of the torah. They are for our benefit. These people refuse to accept that so they fight against Hashem , trying every which way to disprove him. They have buried their souls so deeply in their flesh that they can't be reached. I live with Hashem and his gift of the Torah and all the laws therein. I am at peace. It wasn't always this way. It was a journey of 13 years to get here and a journey that is ever continuing. I don't need science to explain anything. I have Hashem.

(1)
Godlessons,
October 18, 2009 12:33 PM

The probability argument is misguided.

It is highly probable that the beginnings of life could have started spontaneously. Your probability argument starts with a number 26, which I'm unsure where comes from, but whatever this is, it is way too high a number to use for testing probability of something that can begin life. Monomers spontaneously forming into polymers is all you need, and the polymers don't even have to be that long or in any particular order. The polymers replicate themselves at that point no matter the configuration. There is no reason to explain it all here, but once you have the polymers, they can self replicate. It is a bit complicated to go through all the believed early steps, but suffice it to say that once you have polymers spontaneously replicating, you have the starting point for evolution. Evolution is by no means random, and anything that would increase the likelihood of survival would be selected for. In other words, you shouldn't be testing the probability of life as we see it now, you should be testing the probability of the smallest polymer that will self replicate. That is a much less daunting task for nature to accomplish. The Author Responds: The argument that monomers can form into polymers and then polymers can form into functioning cells over vast periods of time and trials is so out of date as to be embarrassing. It is an exact parallel to the now acknowledged-as-being-irrelevant argument put forth by Stanley Miller in 1953. Miller showed that by mixing some logical basic ingredients and zapping them with sparks a few amino acids could form. Whether or not the ingredients chosen by Miller were actually present on the primitive earth is irrelevant. The key is that the reactions never went beyond a few amino acids and could not go beyond them without a big push from a deliberate manipulation [ by the scientist] from outside the reaction vessel. The same is true of the polymer argument. Merely believe that polymers will step by step climb Mountain Improbable. But there are no indications that such is the case without some priming by basic forces inside or outside of nature.

I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!